Tiger, great timing on this thread! I was going to pick Bobby's brain on this, but I'll do it here in public. AFA the fuel guage goes, aftermarket sending units are available for just about any ohm fuel guage, so that's an easy fix. You just have to get the ford 6 bolt to aftermarket 5 bolt adapter ring to fasten it to a stock Ford tank, if that's what you're using. Bobby, are you saying that oil press, water temp, etc are pretty much universal as far as the sending unit is concerned? What about tach and speedo? I saw a guage package in the pull a part, I think it was a Cherokee, that had what I wanted, but the motor was a straight six. Could this be used with a v8 and have an accurate tach? Also, with an oe speedo using a cable, what about calibrating the speedo? I'd like to follow your lead in this, using oe parts to save a few bucks. I'll be heading to the pull a part next week, and if guages are more universal that I thought, I'll have more donor cars to consider.

 

Rusty,
Temp guages, and oil pressure gauges are, for the most part, fairly universal. There may be some slight variations between the sending units but nothing too major. You do want to get the sending units from a donor that had gauges and not idiot lights though.

I'm not as clear on the tachometers, I know that aftermarket tachs have to be set for the # of cylinders so I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to run the Cherokee 6cyl tach off an 8 cylinder distributor. Hopefully one of the smart guys will come along and have and answer to that part of things.

The biggest problems with speedos is finding the right cable housing that will attach to both the trans and the speedo head. At the speedo head some cables screw on, some clip on, etc. Calibration is no big deal as you can usually buy a variety of driven gears that go in the tranny. A google search for your particulara tranny should turn up some info on it.

Bobby

 

How Bitchin is that Tip49 Cluster !!!

 

wow! guages look awesome!! i guess i know what i`m doing next after finishing my homeade bed!! any pics of homeade `53-55 guages??

 

I have pictures in my gallery I use 1/4 sawn oak and mounted gauges in it.

 

you got a nice guage set up!! thanks for posting!

 

Hey dude, as far as the gauges go, you can just write down what you got the cluster out of and go to a REAL parts house (NOT autozone or other discount junk houses) and order the senders for the cluster you got just like you own the vehicle. The only thing you may have to do is adapt fron 1/4" NPT to 1/8" NPT or what ever? Thats' just plumbing adaptors and such. As far as the tach, I am running a Geo Metro dash cluster in my '56 and it had a 3cyl in it. It wouldnt even start with the tach hooked up. So I "cheated" I got a tach from a F150 with the same dia tach face and needle sweep for an 8 cyl and took the tach apart and used the needle from the Geo on the F150 cluster and in esence just used the "guts" from the F150 and the face of the Geo cluster.

I hope you can understand all that, its hard sometimes to convey a thought in text. If you need anything further, I'd be glad to help anytime. I am going to change my Geo setup, cause it dont have oil PSI or a volt meter. I found a '95 Mustang GT cluster with a 140 speedo in it and am going to use it. They match up really well to the curve of the '56 dash. I almost forgot, dont forget to get the pigtails from the donor vehicle so you'll have the correct wire for all your wiring for turnsignals and gauges and also you can get the speedo cable and if you heat up just the metal end you can easily pull it off the plastic cable and put it on the one you are currently using.

Good luck

P.M. me anytime, I'd be glad to help

 

hey truxx, i was thinking of using the mustang cluster on my truck, isen`t the speedo electric on those units?? or are they cable operated??

 

Yeah, it is electric, but there's ways around that too. I am going to use a speedo cable from my trans to the VSS from the Mustang. All the VSS has got to do is turn and you can fab up a coupler to allow the cable from most any trans to use the VSS fom whatever you get your cluster out of. You can leave your cable long enough and have the VSS inside the cab next to the cluster. VSS stands for Vehicle Speed Sensor if you didnt know. When you look at the cable end (the part inside the cab) you'll see it has a male 1/8" square drive on it. You can get a 1/8" Female to join them together cause most VSS's have an 1/8" male on them too.

Of course all the info that I'm telling you is based on the Ford VSS's that I've seen and used in times past. Then you can just change speedo gears to calibrate your speedo. You'll need to get a schematic for whatever cluster donor you got.

Hope this helps

 

thanks for the info truxx!! i`m probably gonna do the mustang cluster, if not i`m probably going to buy a nordskog universal dash and build my own.

 

thanks for the positive feedback on my cluster, hopefully all will be compatible with senders, down the road. I really wanted to keep the instrument panel with the "nostalgia" look but this is as close as I could get with the AOD, mixture of senders I'm using.

 

I need a little input on replacing the idiot light from my donor with an analog ammeter gauge, I'm guessing that both will see 12 volts, just a matter of spanning the circuit with proper resistance for meter deflection ?